History of Music Video's

My brief;
-A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the three options:
a website homepage for the band.
a cover for its release on DVD/CD
a magazine advertisement for the DVD/CD

The two options I've chosen to do are;
a cover for its release on DVD/CD
a magazine advertisement for the DVD/CD

The purpose of a music video is to promote the band/artist/music produced. A music video is also used to promote an artists song, it gives the audience something to watch as well as listen to. Sometimes an older song is promoted by an advertisement or a TV program. For example, the song ‘Singing In The Rain’ was made popular by George Sampson using the track to perform a street dance to on Britain’s Got Talent. The song ‘Singing In The Rain’ was then made into a dance track by ‘Mint Royale’. The song got to number one in the UK chart because of the publicity of Britain’s Got Talent.
The function of a music video is to give the audience vioristic pleasure, this gives the audience a chance to watch the band/artist perform the music produced. Vioristic pleasure means that the audience enjoy watching the band/artist, but the band/artist do not know they are being watched by an audience.
A music video has five main aspects;
A music video shows the artist performing the track. In some cases the band/artist mime in the music video. This is called ‘Mickey Mousing’
A music video usually has a narrative. Usually a performance mixed with a narrative story.
A music video has lyric interpretation, the lyrics are represented in the music video.
A music video also interprets the lyrics with visual imagery.

LIIAR of a music video;

Language- The camera shots and editing help to make up the language of the music video. Close up shots are used to show the front member of the band. The most well known member of the band is always shown the most in the video. The reason for this is the most well known member of the band is usually the member that the audience know. The editing in a music video represent the beat of the song. Also the editing in a music video cuts from the performance of the track to the narrative story of the music video.

Institutions- Music video's are produced by many different media institutions. Different genres of music videos have directors who are familiar with that genre of music.

Ideology- The ideology behind a music video is to promote the track. Music video's are usually narrative based, performance based or both.

Audience- The audience of a music video is generally an audience who are fans of the band performing in the video.

Representation- The lyrics of a song are usually represented within the narrative of a music video. The narrative story of the music video will have some reference to the lyrics, so that the audience will be able to understand both the lyrics and the narrative story of the video. Sometimes in music video there is inter textual references to either films, TV programmes or other music video's, the audience may or may not be able to spot these inter textual references.

History of music video's;

A music video is used to help advertise a music recording. Music video's started to really come into place in the 1980's, when MTV decided to base their format around music video's. VH1 also decided to base their format around music video's.

The term 'music video' became popular in the 1980's, before then music video's were called 'filmed insert', 'promotional (promo) film', 'promotional clip' or 'film clip'. Music video's use a range of different film techniques such as animation, live action filming and abstract film.

In 1926, musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (1926-30) were produced by Warner Brothers and featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. These musical short films had an influence on Michael Jackson's music video's, as many of the dance sequences in his video's are based on dance sequences from Hollywood musicals. These include the John Landis clip in Thriller and the dance 'fights' in Bad.

In 1964, The Beatles starred in a feature film called 'A hard day's night' directed by Richard Lester. It was a black and white mock documentary film. This music video had an influence on the style and visual vocabulary of this music genre. The Monkees (1966-68) was similar to The Beatles 'A hard day's night'. The Monkees TV series had film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs.

In the 1970's Russell Mulcahy made music videos for several UK music acts, such as XTC's 'Making Plans for Nigel' (1979) and The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star' (1979) which also became the first music video to be played on MTV in 1981.

In the late 1970's Top Of The Pops was created. The BBC had strict limits on the number of outsourced videos TOTP could use, therefore a good music video would increase a songs sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week.

In 1981, the U.S video channel launched MTV, airing 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. The era of showing music videos 24 hours a day had begun. By the mid 1980's music videos played a central role in music marketing. Acts such as Adam and the ants, Madonna and Mylene Farmer owe a great deal of success to music videos.

In 1983, the most successful music video of all time was released, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'. This video set new standards of production, costing over $500,000 to film, the video was a starting point for African Amercian artists played on MTV, earlier such videos were rare because MTV had initially launched itself as a rock-music oriented music channel.

In 1986, channel 4 launched 'The Chart Show'. The program consisted of just music videos without any presenters, using computer graphics to link the music videos. The show was moved to ITV1 in 1989.

In 2005, the website YouTube was created, the site made viewing music videos quicker and easier. In 2007 the social networking site MySpace began showing music videos, the website had a profound effect on viewing music videos. Many artists began to see success as a result of videos mostly been shown and viewed online. The band Ok Go are a result of this, having two songs gaining fame through the videos of these songs. Both were shown online and became well known.

MTV also streams music videos online as well as AOL, who launched AOL music, featuring a collection of music videos. At the launch of Apple iTunes Store, free music videos were provided in high quality to be watched via the iTunes application. The iTunes Music Store has now begun selling music videos to be used on the iPod Video.